Research

Research Briefs

Five pillars of research exploring how design practice is evolving and what AI-native creative work looks like.

01

The Death & Rebirth of Designer

The designer, as a professional identity, died somewhere between 2024 and 2025. What's emerging from the wreckage is something far more interesting.

identityevolutionAI-nativerole
02

New Archetypes of the AI-Native Designer

The designer role is not evolving—it is bifurcating. Five distinct archetypes are emerging, each with unique skills and career trajectories.

rolesarchetypescareerspecialization
03

New Skills, Traits & Competencies

Tool execution dies. Judgment survives. The designer's last competitive edge is no longer the ability to push pixels—it's the ability to recognize what matters.

skillslearningjudgmentcompetency
04

New Tools, Workflows & Strategies

The designer's job is no longer to move pixels. It's to orchestrate intent through AI agents, making strategic bets on which outputs deserve refinement and which deserve deletion.

toolsAIworkflowstrategy
05

The Designless Horizon — Expression Infrastructure

In five years, the term 'UI designer' won't mean someone who designs interfaces. It will mean someone who designs the rules, constraints, and semantic models that enable AI to generate infinite interface variations on demand.

futureinfrastructuresystemsgenerative
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